


Good Things Come in Threes

by bocje_ce_ustu



Category: X-Men (Alternate Timeline Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern: Still Have Powers, Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, M/M, Multi, Threesome
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-16
Updated: 2017-12-16
Packaged: 2019-02-11 02:27:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,041
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12925371
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bocje_ce_ustu/pseuds/bocje_ce_ustu
Summary: In a universe where threesomes are the standard, Erik and Magda are a happily married couple with kids.Her meeting with a handsome stranger might soon change that.





	Good Things Come in Threes

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sebastian2017](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sebastian2017/gifts).



**_i_ **

_School for Gifted Youngsters to Reopen in September_

Eager eyes run across the bold-typed letters of the title and the article they introduce, only the tight rein of will keeping them from straying, once at the right end of each line, and lingering instead on the picture attached.

Once the eyes have reached the last word, though, every new snippet of information drunk in avidly and committed to memory, no will is strong enough to prevent the gaze from landing upon the object of his desire.

In the rush of thrill that follows, shapes don’t make much sense. The gaze is once again averted with somewhat guilty urgency, will again called forth to focus on the tagline of the picture, while the mind is a blur of colors. Of dark brown waves, of pale pink dusted in gold, of light blue and dark rose and the soft lilac still poking at the edge of the vision.

The tagline is forgotten. Once more, the eyes slide up to the picture, where colors and shapes are reconciling to the heart’s demise.

Fingers forget themselves and trace one paper cheek. The man in the picture, lips parted mid-sentence and brow quirked in concentration, won’t look that way. That makes things better somehow.

“Come on, we’re gonna be late!” A voice from the end of the hallway tears the eyes away from the man in the picture, which is hastily folded twice and tucked into a pocket for safekeeping.

“Coming.”

 

**_ii_ **

The question is one she posed long ago, only a few months into their relationship.

She had been encircled in Erik’s warmth, quiet puffs of air tickling her cheek, one hand around her waist and one lazily stroking her hip.

“What if there were three of us?”

The hand on her hip went still, breaths growing shallow in her ear. The arms around her rearranged to make her turn his way, one sliding up to rest on her belly.

Erik looked at her with eyes wide and bright, revealing such excitement she failed to place until she heard his answer: “Then I would be the luckiest man in the world.”

A new form of warmth enveloped her, even as she found herself telling him that no, that wasn’t what she meant.

“I mean, I would love that, but that’s not what I was referring to. I was thinking...”

She stopped as emotion deserted Erik’s eyes, making room for genuine confusion, a sliver of embarrassment at the wrong assumption, and then – soon, so soon – the blankness that meant Erik had reached the right conclusion on his own.

“I told you what I thought about that on the day we met.”

“I know, but people change. Their needs change.” Magda took his hand, trying to sooth the nervous energy coming off in waves from Erik’s body.

“I don’t need anyone else,” Erik cut in, a harsh edge to his voice.

“I know you believe that now, but if you met–”

“No, I don’t think...” Erik bites hard on his lip, eyes hardening as he figures out his next words. “I don’t believe you can love two people in the same way. To be honest, I didn’t believe one could love me until I met you.” He looked away, giving way to a frustrated groan.

“I’m making this all about me, aren’t I,” he murmured. “Did you find someone? Someone else you would like to be with?”

“No,” Magda said. “You know, you usually do this kind of thing together.”

Erik gave her a wistful smile. “If you do, though,” he said, “then I’ll go with it.”

“You would?”

“For you,” Erik said, and Magda saw how much it cost him to say that, and loved him even more for it, “I would.”

Then the kids came along, and Magda thought that maybe that was quite alright. Their little family of four had nothing to want for, compared to larger ones. Most standard families didn’t even bat an eye on their arrangement, seeing how they easily complemented each other.

As time passes, their little family growing happily, the question is one she finds herself wondering about less and less.

Until she meets him.

 

**_iii_ **

The splash of hot liquid down her coat still manages to shock her somehow. After months and months of baby food landing squarely in her face she figured she must have made a habit out of it, but apparently that isn’t the case.

“Oh, I’m so sorry, love. I’m still trying to get a hang of this. Here.”

“Oh, no, it’s my fault. I should really look where I’m going.” Magda accepts the proffered handkerchief from a half-finger gloved hand and almost returns it at once: it bears the apparent initials of the man she has just careened into on her way out of the café, in golden thread on expensive-looking silk.

Noticing her hesitation, he shakes his head with a flashing smile, fishing out a twin piece of cloth to dab at the spot on his shoulder where Magda’s coffee has landed. “I keep them especially for this kind of occasions.”

Magda returns the smile and follows his example, wiping away at the dark patch of coffee on her own coat.

“There’s a dry-cleaner around the corner I could show you. I should really pay for that,” the man says, concern once again in his kind eyes as she returns him the now soiled handkerchief, with no significant change in the sorry state of her coat.

Magda eyes critically his similarly ruined jacket. “And I should probably take out a loan for that, so how about we forget about it…”

“… and I buy you a coffee?” the man completes the sentence for her, with his head cocked sideways and a knowing twist of his lip, as he releases the brakes and prepares to wheel back around.

“I like the sound of that.” She grins and follows him towards the counter.

 

**_iv_ **

The next time, when she enters the little coffee shop across from the campus gates, a warm, somewhat familiar voice calls out to her from a little round table in a corner.

She can’t help but notice all of the ways the handsome stranger – a stranger no more – looks different today.

He sits in one of the plushy chairs of the shop, the wheelchair nowhere in sight, and stands up to greet her on wobbly feet. There are dark circles under his eyes, and his hair falls almost dejectedly into his bright eyes, now so bright they almost look manic under the electric light.

If this were their first time meeting, there probably wouldn’t be a second. And that is saying a lot, coming from the woman who met her husband in her cellar, curled up against the boiler room door.

“You look exhausted,” she says as she sticks out a hand over the table to shake his, careful not to upset the piles of tests littering the surface. “Is everything all right?”

“Some mornings are harder. Sometimes I’m just weaker, I guess.” Charles smiles apologetically as if today belongs to the latter category, which doesn’t make much sense, seeing how rehabilitation seems to be going nicely.

“I should probably leave you at it,” she says, gesturing at the tests. She takes a deliberate step back, slowly putting some distance between her and the table, and has to bite back the grin threatening to spread on her face when Charles stops her.

“Actually, I could use some company.” He bends to retrieve the scattered tests and clear the table to make room for her. “Unless I’m keeping you from more pressing matters, of course.”

His fingers are unadorned and clearly visible, which Magda counts as a remarkably bold statement.

If nothing else, that pretty much rules out the possibility of his being a cheater. Your average cheater would take off one ring, certainly not both. Both is a poor character reference, for someone in their mid-thirties. Bad-tempered. Uncompromising. Undesirable. Of course it could also mean simple disinterest in the pursue, but that doesn’t agree with the glint in his eye, the pleased flush of his cheek, the flirty drawl.

Magda is intrigued.

She glances down at her own hands, at the gold band circling her index finger. Erik explicitly requested it be that way, cast in the one metal he can’t control.

For a second she feels a pang of guilt, as if she’s the cheater in here. She is not, she reminds herself. She is testing the waters. Investigating. If she doesn’t, they may never know.

“Not at all,” she says, taking a seat across from Charles and motioning to the nearest waiter.

 

**_v_ **

“My husband is a mutant,” she says on the third time they meet, sticking out her chin just a bit.

Something in Charles seems to loosen, and Magda grows bold. “Something tells me you are too.”

Whatever seemed to unfurl a moment before knots back together in Charles’s brow.

Oh, so that’s how it is.

It shouldn’t surprise her as much as it does. After all, she _is_ married to Erik Lehnsherr. She has seen pride and self-loathing go hand in hand more times than she cares for. This is something she knows how to deal with.

She extends a hand towards him on the table, not quite near enough to touch, but clear in intent.

“You don’t have to tell me, if you don’t want to.”

“In fact, I think I do.” Charles offers her a wry smile. “I’m a telepath.”

“So you… oh. Oh.”

Charles chuckles at her wide-eyed gaze in apparent delight. “No, I’m afraid you’ll have to elaborate on that. I… try not to intrude on people’s privacy if I can.”

“Even when it concerns you personally?” Magda can’t help asking, a little amusement creeping in her voice despite herself. A handsome, charming man like him surely must be bombarded by impressions and thoughts verging on the lewd from the fair number of heads he turns.

“In that case even more so,” he remarks, feigning a shudder.

“It must be tough, though,” Magda ponders.

“It depends on the person.” A glint of mischief graces Charles’s eyes. “I can assure you, I would love to hear all about your dirty talk about me, darling.”

“No, I meant… it must be tough, closing yourself off all the time not to risk hurting anyone. I don’t know how that feels like, but… you see, my husband always tells me that the most important thing is taking pride in who you are.” Then, shaping her brow in the stern line she is used to seeing on Erik’s face, she pronounces solemnly: “If you don’t believe in yourself, no one will.”

“Your husband is a brave man,” Charles says with a sad smile. “But I’m afraid his rule applies only to those whose pride hasn’t already turned into arrogance.”

“And what terrible deeds did your arrogance set you on?”

“Killing a man.”

The quiet chatter of the shop keeps going as if nothing happened. As if fearing she might think it a joke, Charles looks up straight into her eyes and repeats, in a quiet murmur almost swallowed by the din, “I killed a man”.

As irony will have it, Magda feels her eyes soften at the corners and her lips quirk up.

“You keep doing that.”

Charles stares at her, dumbfounded, and if Magda had any doubt before about his use of telepathy, the disorientation on Charles’s face would dispel it completely.

“You keep on trying to scare me away. I’ll tell you now, it won’t work.”

“I’m not lying,” Charles says, almost a desperate edge to his voice.

“I believe you,” Magda assures him, “but I’m not running away.”

Charles looks away, fiddles with the spoon in his afternoon tea. His eyes are taking on a bad kind of shine, the one Magda recognizes from when Charles is exhausted and tries not to let it show.

“You don’t know me.”

“Yet,” she says stubbornly, smiling a little at how fundamentally different men can resemble each other so much. “But I plan to. So don’t ever hide from me.”

She never sees Charles standing after that. But he sees her, and she sees him.

 

**_vi_ **

It’s a simple folder like tens of others in his study, which explains why Erik can still pretty much leave it anywhere among his projects without arousing any attention to it. The only relevant detail is the almost invisible X scratched in pencil over dark blue paper. Open it and years upon years of conferences, book presentations, round tables, peaceful protests and the like come forward, documenting Erik’s absolute inability to let go.

The folder opens at the last page, crammed only halfway with articles and pictures, waiting to be filled completely.

A hand rummages into a pocket, then another, then another.

Maybe not here, no, but it has to be jeans. It was the back pocket of a blue pair, Erik is sure, but the pair seems to inexplicably have disappeared. Which doesn’t make any sense, because Erik is on laundry duty this week.

“I forgot about that,” Magda says later, an apology in her eyes. “That at least explains where all those pieces of paper came from.”

 

**_vii_ **

Contrary to popular belief – which Erik honestly doesn’t give a fuck about on his best, most selfless days, thank you very much – the words _we need to talk_ have never, coming from Magda’s lips, sent that spark of danger that preludes the inevitable coming apart of a (in all probability already on its way to sinking) relationship. And that’s because their relationship is based on trust, on _telling each other things_ , on sharing feelings and fears and dreams. (And even in the remote eventuality they aren’t telling each other something, it’s because that something doesn’t really matter, doesn’t really have anything to do with them, and is ultimately too inconsequential for Erik to even dwell on to begin with.) This time isn’t going to be any different, Erik is sure.

That is why he fails to see the alarms going off on Magda’s face as she puts away the last of the dishes and turns to him, lips set in a thin, determined line.

“I’m seeing someone,” she says, without preamble. “I’d like you two to meet.”

Erik takes a deep breath, focusing on wiping his hands with a kitchen cloth before speaking. It’s not that he is at a loss for words, it’s that he has too many, too loud. “Love, we talked about this…”

“I know, I know, but listen…”

“… and I told you I would go with it, but that’s it. Please don’t try and make me change my mind.”

“I’m only asking you to meet him. Just this once. But, Erik… he is truly a wonderful person. He’s a mutant, like you.” The sparkling in her eyes is almost enough to undo him, and Erik wishes it could be just as Magda believes. “And he’s nice, and funny, and charming. And he teaches, so I’m sure he could get along just fine with Wanda and Pietro. Also he’s unattached, which is really the best we could hope for…”

“You said he teaches.” Which doesn’t mean anything, it doesn’t, but tell that to his mind, already running loops like a frenzied hamster.

“I’ve already said too much,” Magda chides, in a good humour now that she’s found the chink in his armour. “I want you to see for yourself.”

 

**_viii_ **

Erik is tense all the way to the café, which means approximately a dozen changes of radio stations and ventilation options per minute, as he focuses hard not to rattle the car.

He almost bumps into a young couple on their way out, coming to a sudden stop in front of the entrance. He shakes himself out of it though, mumbles an apology and lets Magda lead the way inside.

Magda counts the steps to the familiar corner of the shop with trepidation, and when she finally stops by Charles’s table, she lets the events unfold.

“Charles.”

In Charles’s gaze she can see shock and recognition at war. By the time Magda’s eyes have turned back to Erik’s, ugly betrayal is written all over his face.

“Did you know?”

“Magda, I’d better be going,” Charles is saying, no doubt sensing the situation going awry.

“You stay there,” Erik roars. A few heads turn their way and a waitress stops dead in her tracks, one full tray poised on each arm, trying to assess the situation.

Charles raises a hand to his head in a strange, aborted motion, then scowls and drops it in his lap.

“She didn’t know, Erik. And I wouldn’t be here if I did.”

“Of course not. You like being in charge, don’t you, Charles? There’s no fun for you in dealing with someone you can’t control.”

“Erik, that’s enough.” Magda closes her hand around his, comfort barely veiling a warning. Under her fingers, raw energy simmers, hardly contained by a fragile shell of skin. “Come, let’s get some air.”

Charles’s eyes, when she looks back at him in the hope of conveying both an apology and a request for time, are studying his feet, a barely perceptible tremor disturbing his quiet perusal.

When Magda comes back inside, leaving Erik furiously kicking around an empty can on the curb without ever touching it, a waiter is carrying away a half drunk cup of coffee from the table.

Charles is nowhere to be seen.

 

**ix**

To be fair, the rage she expected. The loud, violent breakdown, the calls of betrayal and falsehood, the occasional appliance flung into the wall or melted in a lump – as long as the kids are at daycare and the pipes stay in their respective places, she will remain unfazed.

What does take her by surprise is the way Erik, eventually accepting her take on the matter, gives in to his own private kind of sorrow, whose only accountable party remains the person of Charles Francis Xavier, cold-blooded manipulator and all-time regret of Erik’s life.

“Erik, love, breathe. Breathe.”

Magda kneels beside him, wrapping an arm around his body.

“I’m sorry.” Erik’s eyes are on the toaster buzzing helplessly on the ground.

“It’s alright. We’ll buy another one.”

“You like him, don’t you,” he says, as if there never was another option.

“A lot,” she says, because it’s true, and there is no one who could prove that better.

“He does that to you. That’s his real power. He just…” he adds around a shuddering breath and a wet laugh “gets underneath your skin and never leaves.”

Magda leans in, touching her forehead to Erik’s temple. “If you’re still in love with him, why don’t you tell him?”

Erik shakes his head frantically, almost dislodging their embrace.

“I know his answer. He was pretty clear about it too, last time I checked.”

Magda snorts. “Ten years ago?” She pulls away slowly to better peer at Erik’s despondent frown.

“Listen, darling, I’m not going anywhere without you, you know that, right? So if Charles is a no, we move on. But you need closure. You need to figure this out for yourself.”

“Needs change?” Erik sobs.

“Maybe they stay the same,” Magda concedes. “We only become braver in accepting them for what they are.”

 

**x**

It really shouldn’t surprise him that the first time he sees Raven in over nine years is outside Charles’s door, barring the entrance.

“I just need to talk to him, Raven.”

“Oh, I know how you talk, Erik. That’s not what I’m worried about. I’m worried about what comes after, ‘cause you’re not going to be the one picking up the pieces.”

Suddenly Raven’s face turns into a grimace, and she falls silent for a few minutes as if going through an internal debate. Whatever the debate, Charles must have won it, because in the end she casts Erik a snarl and bolts from the door, stalking across the room to him to whisper in his ear: “He says he wants this to be over with so he doesn’t have to hear your voice ever again”.

Then the door opens slowly, only Erik keeping it from creaking loudly on its hinges.

“Why are you here, Erik?”

Charles’s voice sounds tired. Tired as on that beach, breaking all the promises Erik had held onto with every fibre of his being, tired as in the morning, when his first and only words were to protect Magda, not himself, from Erik’s anger.

Charles’s voice sounds tired, and Erik realizes he is tired as well. Tired of strips of paper cut and pasted on an anonymous folder. Tired of repeating to himself that he can’t have two people to love him because the only other person who’s ever loved him like that is forever lost to him. Tired of a beach as the last happy memory they will ever share.

So he drops on the ground beside Charles and says the only thing that rings true.

“I miss your voice. That day you told me we didn’t want the same things. I don’t care. I want you.”

Charles nods, as if reaching some conclusion of his own, and it’s clear what that is when he speaks. It’s the answer Erik has been searching for all this time. Why. Why Charles left him alone.

“I felt like I could do anything, as long as I had you by my side. I felt powerful. I was terrified, ‘cause I would have… I would have done _anything_.”

Charles falls silent, and even though from up close his cheeks are pale and dry, Erik can hear the desperate wail tearing his mind apart.

“You were my serenity.”

“You were my rage. You gave me the will to fight back, by any means necessary. But none of that did us any good.”

“It could have.” _If you hadn’t given up on me_ is left unsaid.

“It could have destroyed us.”

“That it did.” Erik takes a deep breath. “Magda told me you wouldn’t use your gift.”

“You’re lucky to have her. You should cherish her.” Charles offers him a wistful smile. “It was easier that way. When I closed my eyes, I could leave everything behind.”

“Don’t leave me behind.”

Charles just blinks.

“Don’t leave me behind,” Erik repeats, bracing himself against the certainty he sounds just as pathetic as he feels.

“Can you promised the same to me?”

 

**_xi_ **

“I swear I had left them here.”

“Have you checked in the study yet?” comes Magda’s voice from the bedroom.

“ _Yes._ ” The desk drawers fly open once again, files bouncing up by the paperclips keeping them pinned together and piling themselves on the floor.

“Your briefcase, perhaps? You went to the jewellery store with it, remember?”

“Yes, but I thought I’d taken them out already,” he grumbles, picking up his briefcase to check anyway.

Pencil case, wallet, blueprint, blueprint, paper tissues, office keys, something small stuck between the prints for the presentation and the noteb—

“Ha!” His fist closes around the small box, fingers digging into the soft velvet. “Found them!”

When Erik’s hand emerges from the bag triumphantly, something else flits through the air and falls on the ground, catching his attention.

It’s a slip a paper, carefully folded twice. The title reads _School for Gifted Youngsters to Reopen in September_ , but it’s the picture going with it that catches Erik’s eye.

“Ready?”

He looks up from the picture to Magda standing in the doorway, stunning in her white dress. He can’t help running up to her, crushing her into an embrace.

“Thank you,” Erik whispers in her hair, his voice catching a little on the words.

Magda holds him a little tighter before pulling away with a smirk. “None of it was done for pure selfless reasons, I’ll have you know.”

“Oh, I can imagine.”

“Rings?”

“They were in my briefcase, just like you said.”

“I wonder who thought hiding them there was a good idea,” she says, earning a playful pinch in her side.

“Come on, we’re gonna be late,” he whispers tugging her along, one hand holding hers, the other the box where three rings have been waiting silently for this day.  
  
  
  



End file.
